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4 weeks ago | 
thespinoff.co.nz | Calum Henderson
The top-rated Scrabble players in the country go head-to-head this Easter weekend. Watch games live from 9.30am on the stream below. How does it all work? The Masters is different to most Scrabble tournaments in that it’s invitational, open only to the top-rated players in the country.
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1 month ago | 
thespinoff.co.nz | Calum Henderson
Does Three’s new true crime series about the trial that gripped the nation bring us any closer to knowing what happened to Pauline Hanna? We all have our vices, and for eight weeks in the winter of 2024 mine was ghoulishly mainlining coverage of the Philip Polkinghorne murder trial.
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1 month ago | 
thespinoff.co.nz | Calum Henderson
Three different sporting codes share the same venue over the space of four days. Here’s how they all stack up. Is it too late to reschedule Friday night’s Warriors game to a Sunday afternoon kickoff at Eden Park? This is all it would take to create a total sporting eclipse: four different sports back-to-back at the same stadium in as many days.
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Jan 30, 2025 | 
thespinoff.co.nz | Calum Henderson
We’re one of the only nations to experience this rare and thrilling tiebreak method, and have suffered more than anyone from its demise. Who better to bring it back? Twenty years ago next month, the first ever T20 international was played between New Zealand and Australia at Eden Park.
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Jan 8, 2025 | 
military-history.org | Calum Henderson
Military History Matters has curated a list of 2024’s best military history titles: the nominees for this year’s MHM book awards. Our selection includes some of the best-researched, most-insightful, and most readable titles reviewed and featured in the magazine over the past year.
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Jan 8, 2025 | 
military-history.org | Calum Henderson
Military History Matters has curated a list of 2024’s best military history titles: the nominees for this year’s MHM Book Awards. Our selection includes some of the best-researched, most-insightful, and most-readable titles reviewed and featured in the magazine over the last year.
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Dec 29, 2024 | 
thespinoff.co.nz | Calum Henderson
Summer reissue: A spider is an arachnid, not an insect… and 50 other fun and obscure facts, names, places and phrases. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a member today. In my late teens and early 20s one of my defining personality traits was simply “The Office”.
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Nov 14, 2024 | 
thespinoff.co.nz | Calum Henderson
In an Antipodean first, the Bledisloe Cup of Scrabble is streaming live on YouTube all weekend. Here’s how to watch and everything else you need to know. What’s all this then? It’s Scrabble as you’ve never seen it before! Unless you already watch Scrabble online, in which case it’s Scrabble exactly as you’ve seen it before but with a lot more New Zealanders and Australians. In other words: for the first time in New Zealand Scrabble history, a tournament is being live streamed on YouTube.
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Jun 14, 2024 | 
thespinoff.co.nz | Calum Henderson
Speed puzzling is like a marathon for the mind – intense, demanding, surprisingly exhausting. But does turning it into a sport destroy it as a relaxing pastime? Watching the highlights of the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship makes me want to be sick. Dozens of teams in matching T-shirts swarm around tables in a brightly-lit convention centre, working in unison to assemble 1000-piece jigsaws with the ruthless efficiency of Formula 1 pit crews.
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Jun 4, 2024 | 
nzherald.co.nz | Calum Henderson
Featuring dangerous driving in an Austin Mini, line dancers versus the Open Polytechnic and the many misdemeanours of Hell Pizza. Photo / The SpinoffFeaturing dangerous driving in an Austin Mini, line dancers versus the Open Polytechnic and the many misdemeanours of Hell Pizza. Originally published by The Spinoff. For as long as there have been ads in New Zealand, there have been people complaining about them.
